American Cinematographer - May 2017 - 60

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Survival Story

Aguirresarobe and crew set the camera for a shot overlooking the Spanish town of Albarracín.

essential - since when it came time for
digital-intermediate work, the cinematographer was already off in Sydney,
Australia, to work on Marvel's Thor:
Ragnarok. Much of the DI - which
George closely oversaw - was assisted
by visual-effects supervisor Mark
Russell and his team, with
Aguirresarobe getting a late-stages look
to sign off. "The DI is helpful to achieve
a greater depth and intensity in the
image," the cinematographer notes,
"because it allows you to work on areas
in the frame that cannot be so precisely
defined on set when shooting quickly."
Sixteen19's
senior
colorist
Andrew Francis completed the final
grade at the XT's 3.4K, 12-bit native
resolution with Blackmagic Design
DaVinci Resolve, for a 2K DCP final
theatrical deliverable.
One of the most complicated
scenes of the movie took place "in what
is the biggest water tank for film shoots,"
Aguirresarobe says, located in the noted
modern film-mecca of Malta. The cinematographer had to light the film's three
principals amid complex action in that
giant, darkened tank, where mechanically churned waves simulated a choppy
ocean shoreline. "The scene required a
moonlit night," he says. "The boats
approached from the background into
60

May 2017

the foreground - a real challenge when
it comes to set lighting. I opted for backlighting with an 18K HMI Fresnel as
the main source to re-create the moon,
and added a softer lateral lighting along
the entire side of the tank. For that, I
used bounced lighting, normally with
12K and several 9K HMIs. Once the
boats were close to camera, we used a
softer and more diffuse lighting."
To further complicate matters,
Aguirresarobe adds, "normally when you
shoot a scene like this, the boat our actors
were in would be static - with the water
and cameras moving - and that will
create all the tension and all the movement. But in this case, because we
wanted to create an environment where
the actors can clearly communicate and
express profound emotions, we underscored the situation by moving the boat,
which was much more difficult for lighting."
The cinematographer reports that
for a sequence involving a fatal immersion that one of the principals would
enact, "we used the Technocrane 50 with
an Amphibian Remote Head. The Alexa
camera was protected by a Scubacam,
with the possibility of immersion up to 4
feet. Much of the time the characters
were far from the light, so you know
you'll need to rely on the DI at some
American Cinematographer

stage. In these cases, you want to be sure
you have the full information from the
camera, so you can be sure you can use it
all later in the DI phase."
Le Bon, a French Canadian,
impressed all with her moxie during
repeated dunkings. "We worked with
Mike Valentine [BSC], who's a really
good underwater [director of photography]," she says. "He did all these James
Bond movies. He works with his wife;
they talk to you underwater with signs,
and to answer, you just do signs. We did
lots of takes; they'd give me oxygen and
then take it back. It's very 'Zen' - you
have to focus on your breathing."
In concert with the shooting challenges, determining just how to portray
the death of a central character during
the drowning scene - and that death's
aftermath - would bedevil the filmmakers all through the late-editing
stages. Editor Steven Rosenblum, who
was steadfastly cutting in Madrid all
through the shoot as it roamed to its
various locations, purposely kept to his
normal practice of avoiding the set.
"If I'm going to cut something
that took them a hard half-day to shoot,
I'd rather not know that," Rosenblum
says. Indeed, for another sequence -
depicting Boghosian riding a donkey
from his picturesque rural village into
the hills, as he forges ahead to his new
life in Constantinople - Rosenblum
used "roughly half " of an elaborate crane
shot, which he then mixed with a low
angle on man and beast.
***
Of all AC witnessed on the set of
The Promise - a movie steeped in the
study of survival amid human cruelty -
the ominous image of the words "Emre
faces firing squad" on the call sheet still
stands out. For the scene, George had
set Aguirresarobe the task of helping to
compose a shot that wouldn't be shocking enough to knock the film out of its
much-desired PG-13 rating, but would
nevertheless "always, always [strive for] a
sense of realism and something authentic," says the cinematographer. "Mostly
what I want to show for this man is

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